NotSheep

Last night was windy again, though not nearly as bad as the previous one, and a few more people arrived this morning. An early night last night, however, meant an early start this morning - by 6.40 a.m., Toby was snuggled inside Barney’s sleeping bag in the living-room (with Barney still in there too), “helping” Barney with a book of logic puzzles. At about 7.30 I sent Barney off to the shop on his bicycle to refresh our supply of milk and washing-up liquid, both having been largely used up by the hot chocolate the previous evening. By 9, all were fed and dressed and out racing on their bicycles - Freddy borrowing wheels as and when he could - and I was wondering why energy seems to easy to find when you’re a kid…

Having checked the forecast yesterday evening, I knew to expect rain later today, so sent them all (including Scratchy, who arrived last night) off to the beach in the late morning. Well, I say “all”, but I don’t really mean it. George had decided he was too delicate for such capers and decided to stay here with me and practise his knitting - but didn’t wash his hands, so the scarf he is knitting for his beanie-teddy now consists of stripes of off-white and very-off-white. And about 45 minutes after the others had left, one of the bedroom doors opened and Barney emerged - I’d thought he was on the beach! “Did you know we didn’t know you were in there?” I asked, and he replied, “I kinda thought so!”

After lunch Scratchy took everyone but Barney into the big town to look for a bicycle-repair shop, and a new inner tube was purchased and fitted. Barney stayed here with me and did some French - something he wasn’t very pleased about, but he didn’t want to go to town either, and he needs to keep at the revising if he’s to do well in the GCSE. (Actually that’s probably not really true - even if he did nothing from now until June, he’d probably do well anyway, but if he’s to do the best he can, he needs to revise.) Given my lack of energy and the fact that my pubic bone feels ready to split into pieces at any minute, I spent most of the day trying to get into a comfortable seating position and knitting. I finished my lacy socks and the baby-hat I was making, and made a hat with a skull and crossbones motif for George - all the boys want one of these, but they all want different colours, and George’s was the only one I had all the colours for. I cast on at lunchtime and he was wearing it by 4 p.m., which muchly impressed one of my neighbours I was going to start another hat with dancing skeletons on it for Jack next, but discovered I hadn’t printed out the pattern to bring with me, so had to revert to my current mindless project - a very soft wool/soy mixture scarf for me. I like the yarn so much that I ordered more of it this week; I’m hoping the postman didn’t leave it sitting at the front door in the wind and rain…

Freddy and Toby were the only ones here when dinner was ready, so I asked Freddy to call his brothers. “Barney, George and Freddy!” he yelled at the door, before turning and realising he’d just called himself in At least when I mix up their names I don’t include my own Jack came in anyway, and asked of the pizza, “Is that home…home…caravan-made or bought?”